We must go with our friends to the end of the journey
—you with Marx, and I with Rainer. Now I must say
good-bye. Good-bye, little FriedeL"

Helene leant her head on her hands and gazed out of
the window. There was a dancing, oppressive heat
outside. The flowers in the pots smelled strongly, as
though they were feverish. Helene took up her pen
again and wrote.

** Please take care of my flowers when I am no longer
here. Gulrapp is too distracted."

Then the letter was sealed.

*c I am going now, Gulrapp," said Helene, and stood
for another moment in the middle of the room.

"Off you go. You have my blessing/' answered
Gulrapp, deep in her books. Helene came up behind her
and kid her large, rather cool hand on the black, gleaming
hair of her comrade, Gulrapp responded by trying to
shake the hand away with a little shudder.

" You mustn't keep on touching me," she answered,
exasperated. " I can't stand it."

Poor Gulrapp, fighting so gamely against yourself,
day by day, and night by night; repressing your wasted
affection, that bitter secret. * . . Your little person
seems to become more and more ethereal, your eyes
behind their spectacles look more distraught; the thin.,
ivory bands become more and more shaking as further and
further away slips the triumphant conclusion, the inward
satisfaction, the sense of completion in your restless soufc
Thus did Helene bid good-bye to you on that hot, op-
pressive afternoon. She knew you to be highly talented, to
have the power to become a leading authority on archaeo-
logy, yet she had little hope for you, Gudula Rapp, since
your dissertation had remained no more than a patchwork

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